Some wisdom gleamed from posts around the web that caught our eye:

Don’t be shy about talking pricing, in person and on your website, according to Susan Payton at Small Business Trends.  Withholding that information can lead to customer frustration and waste both your customers time and your own.

People2People remind us of the ways CRM can be used throughout the process of gaining and retaining customers, especially to make it as easy for your clients to contact you as possible.

Rohit Bhargava at OPEN Forum talks about the how to stereotype your customers successfully.  The word stereotype is sort of bombastic in this sense, but the technique she describes is a useful one.

And from Lifehacker, we learn from a technique they teach consumers about how to get something from us, providers of services.  The lesson for us, is that a little bit of positivity goes a long way towards easing the reception of criticism.

Next Tuesday, we at ARMA are proud to be a sponsor of Empty Bowls 2011, an important event hosted by Interfaith Works, and would like to encourage our colleagues and friends to do the same.

Interfaith Works is an innovative local non-sectarian interfaith coalition that does invaluable work to meet the needs of the poor and homeless here in Montgomery County.  At their First Annual Empty Bowls on December 7 from 6:30 – 8:30 PM at VisArts in Rockville Town Center, we’ll share a simple meal of hearty soup and bread prepared and donated by local chefs served in a handmade bowl donated by local artists and students.

If you’re not able to join us at the event, please consider a one-time donation to support the essential services that Interfaith Works provides to those living in poverty within our community:

• $25 – Buys breakfast for a client at IW’s homeless day program for 1 week
• $50 – Buys lunch for a client at IW’s homeless day program for 1 week
• $100 – Buys dinner for 30 women at IW’s women’s shelter
• $250 – Provides grocery store gift cards to 10 struggling families to purchase food for the holidays

Perhaps in the wake of the announcement that the U.S. Government will be making a tool available to small businesses for the purpose of increasing their defenses against internet criminals,  there have been a number of posts related to small business and technology today that are worth checking out.

Rieva Lesonsky at OPEN Forum has written a pretty great (thorough!) essay on the process of looking at your business needs and determining if the time is right to upgrade your technological systems.  She includes a number of litmus tests, for instance, is your technology “a morass of different hardware brands, different software versions and even different operating systems”?

John Micciche on Twitter reminds us of the importance of investing in IT security, and reminds us of other, perhaps less important, areas we’re already willing to spend our hard earned dollars.

And while this is clearly somewhat self-serving, Carbonite has put together this infographic for data backup that is worth spending a minute looking at.  (And then choosing whatever back up software or system works best for you):

In essence, you want to put yourself in your customer’s shoes. What would your customers want to hear from you when they contact you with any type of issue?

Christopher Elliot who writes on customer service issues for BNet.com has the following article: “5 Simple Things to Say to Win Over a Customer.” Elliot counsels businesses to start with a personal greeting (how many times are customers greeted with a phone tree and a request for information instead?). Then he suggests these steps:

• Asking “How may I help you?”
• Remaining with the customer until the issue is fixed
• Providing contact information
• Ending by thanking the customer for his/her business.

Clearly, these are basic yet crucial steps, which help the customer feel that his/her issue is being taken seriously and being resolved, and also that he/she is important to your business.

Another exercise is to think, again as if you are the customer, what you would not want to hear. Examples of what customers don’t want to hear are: excuses, “that’s not our problem,”  “we can’t/won’t help you,” or “call later.”

How you think about your customers will affect how you deal with them, and consequently, how they feel about your company.

Michael Schrage, writing “Do You Think Your Customers Are Stupid?” on the Harvard Business Review blog, says the following:

Few things say more about organizational culture and character than how employees complain about the customers and clients they serve.

Many times, account executives or management, may make disparaging remarks about their customers. While some customers can be difficult, or yes, stupid, to let this pervade your organizational culture will undercut any customer ties you have. As Schrage writes:

Why would leaderships in any organization say or do things that disrespect their customers?… if these comments authentically represent organizational perspectives, then no one should be surprised when customers and clients choose to return the favor. In my experience, the overwhelming majority of business people are simply not good enough actors to consistently conceal the disdain they feel for their difficult or troublesome customers.

If you have a very bad customer, then perhaps it is wise to let go of that business. But to have a corporate culture that is dismissive of all customers, and thinks poorly of them, will only result in loss of business.

Before looking ahead, it is helpful to look back and review the year that was. Businesspeople should ask themselves:

• What worked and what didn’t?
• Where did my business encounter the most opportunities?
• The most challenges?
• How do I rate my customer service? It is at the level I want?

Once you have assessed, then you can plan ahead.  What changes will make 2011 look better? How will you lessen the challenges and increase the opportunities?

What will customer service look like in 2011? Will the trend of cutting customer service budgets continue? Will social media still dominate? You can make your own predictions. According to the Small Business Trends website, “11 Customer Service Trends to Watch in 2011″ include:

• You’ll have even less time to react to customer demands
• Web customer service will become fully integrated with phone support
• More self-service

Whatever 2011 brings, ARMA wishes you continued success and reminds you to keep your focus on your customers, as they are the lifeblood of your business.

Happy New Year 2011!

• Purpose
• People
• Performance

Purpose is simply the focus your business has for customer service. You may have as your customer service purpose to make each and every customer completely satisfied with his/her purchase. Or your purpose may be overarching: provide great customer service alwasy.

People are what makes customer service happen. The better your customer service staff is the better your customer service.  Selecting the right people for the job, and giving those people support and training will go a very long way in making customer service work well in your company.

Performance is the actual every-day practice of your customer service strategies, putting all the theories to work.  Without performance, your customer service is meaningless. If you say that you work hard to make customers happy, but you don’t actually do the work, there is no performance, and your customer service will pay the price.

Tying all 3 Ps together is one more P word: priority.  Making  customer service a priority within your organization will result in happy, satisfied (and returning) customers.

This efficiency and reliability comes down to the number one lesson from the Fire Department:

• When the phone rings, you answer it immediately.

In emergency situations, you don’t have the luxury of waiting to answer the phone when it is convenient. You do it because people’s lives may be in danger and you must respond as quickly as possible. In business, your customer should come first, and answering the phone goes a long way in assuring him or her that you care.

• Treat every call with respect

Not every call may be life-or-death urgent, but you just don’t know, and must treat each and every call the same. Firefighters will answer the call and then try to determine how to prioritize it. In business, some calls may be about easily resolved issues and some may have to do with larger organizational problems. You don’t know, and until you have determined what the call means, you need to treat each and every caller with respect.

• Have a response ready

When you call the Fire Department, the firefighters will determine if you have a fire, and if so, how many fire trucks may be needed, or if you have a medical emergency, and if so, what type of ambulance to send. They have systems in place to send the right equipment to respond to whatever the situation is. The business lesson here is that there must be an appropriate response to every situation.

A couple more things: In order for emergency response to work it must be reliable and available, and that is exactly what we need from customer service too.

In a free market, organizations are free to provide as much or as little customer service as they like. But is a customer problem something the free market can ignore at will? Technically, the answer is yes. After all, if a company ignores or refuses to deal with a problem, the customers can take their business elsewhere, and the company will then be “punished” by the free market. But this is free market theory, and in practice, we believe that when we buy a service or a product, and there is a problem, there is a LEGAL obligation for the company/organization to rectify the situation.

In fact, this legal obligation may be spelled out in a sales contract. But it is not always. This is where regulators would like to step in.  We are seeing this more and more with the airline industry. With the rise in add-on fees and unclear fares, the government wants to make things easier for passengers to understand.

According to this blog post on Forbes.com, the government should NOT be involved in regulating airline customer service. The writer, Allen Howell, believes the free market will take care of this.   As he writes:

The consumer can choose which airline they fly with, or they can choose to not fly the airlines at all.

Companies should voluntarily step up customer service, understanding that customer service always helps the bottom line. Should the government regulate customer service? Perhaps there are situations where regulation is necessary such as when a company has a monopoly on the market segment, or there is a known  life-and-death situation.  But, there are no absolutes in business!

Happy employees=good customer service=satisfied customers=happy employees

A great example of the customer service-employee circle is JetBlue. The airline is known for a providing a good experience. As its CEO, Dave Barger tells the San Francisco Chronicle:

We’ve earned a sixth consecutive J.D. Power and Associates award for customer service, and we’re a good place of employment. This combination works extremely well for JetBlue.

Now, should your happy employees use Twitter to interact with customers? That is what Valeria Maltoni asks in this post over on her blog Conversation Agent. You should determine whether your company is ready to use social media to deal with customer issues. For instance, one issue with Twitter is response speed–it should be very quick. Can your company handle that?

There’s no doubt that Twitter has worked wonders for customers–they can publicly shame a company into action. And companies should be aware (and responsive)  that customers are talking about their problems in a public forum.

What are you doing to keep your customers and your customer service employees happy?